


Miles To Go Before I Sleep (The Apocalyptica Remix)

by inkandchocolate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-19
Updated: 2010-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-09 14:05:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandchocolate/pseuds/inkandchocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After it's all over, there's one more promise to keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miles To Go Before I Sleep (The Apocalyptica Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Out Beyond All the Breaking of Waves](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/852) by marciaelena. 



> Author's Notes: Writen for the kamikazeremix. Go check out the awesomeness of my author's original fic (Out Beyond All the Breaking of Waves by marciaelena) and the rest of the remixes at the comm: http://community.livejournal.com/kamikazeremix/

The car has never felt so crowded. Dean shifts his shoulders, glances in the mirror to check on who

//…on what, don't you mean what, dumb ass?//

might be behind him. The mirror remains empty of anything but the road unrolling away from him, minute by minute and mile by mile.

Instead of feeling reassured, Dean feels that pressure again, as if something is pushing him against the side of the car, a fullness in the front seat that he can't ignore. He shrugs his right shoulder and though there is no resistance to the movement, he can almost hear the whisper of leather on leather, as though he were rubbing up against someone else there.

\---

There's not much left of the world they saved. Dean can see it in every glace he takes to the sides of the roads he's driving. Towns are more or less smoking remains, tent cities springing up around the piles of rubble. If this is the world's way of cleaning house, then it's done a damn fine job of shaking out the excess humanity.

Dean wonders if it was worth the effort. Sometimes he says it out loud to fill the empty void left by a lack of functioning radio stations, when he just cannot listen to one more mix tape or replay Metallica one more time.

"You know it was," is the answer he gets every single time.

Sometimes the voice belongs to Cas, mild as usual and slightly amused – at least he sounds that way to Dean. Cas never did manage to find the appropriate human inflection for anything he had to say, it was always swinging wildly into the intense zone or kind of hanging out in neutral with a side of smirk.

Sometimes he swears it's John there, the deep tone that ruled his life for so many years that Dean will never forget it if he lives to be a hundred. John was everything in his world forever, and then he stepped off and left Dean to fill that void with something else.

"Sammy," Dean says to himself, fingers idly turning down the volume on the radio.

He grins as he looks to the right and sees a flutter-quick series of images. Sam at five, pudgy and sticky-faced, the remains of a hotdog clenched in his fist, mustard smeared over his mouth and chin. At fourteen, knees and elbows too bony and bruised, his mood crafting a hard set to his mouth that Dean will eventually dub The Bitchface. At eighteen, on his way to the bus stop, destination: Anywhere But Here.

//…Sammy's hands pressed to his belly, trying so damn hard to hold in his guts and failing spectacularly, blood cascading over his clenched fingers, soaking his jeans, the seat of the car, the floor mats, choking out Dean's name…//

Dean swerves off the road, bounces the tires over broken concrete. His head slams into the steering wheel and then back against the headrest when the nose of the car impacts with the bottom of the ditch. The engine revs hard and loud as his foot presses against the gas pedal, instinct making him want to run from something he cannot escape.

There's blood in his eye from the cut he's reopened, sticky and burning when it runs into his eye. He swears as he tries to raise his left hand to swipe it away and the low growl turns into a breathless scream as he reopens something much worse.

Dean's breath hitches in just enough for him to let out another sound, this one closer to a sob. He looks for that feeling he had not so long ago, but the car that was so crowded is now devastatingly empty. John's not there, he never was. John hasn't been there for so long, and Dean knew that. Cas has been gone for weeks. Neither one of them has been sitting next to him, neither one of them has been answering him when he got bored enough, crazy enough, to talk out loud. He *knew* this, bone deep, but things haven't been right in his head for a while. Not since the end, not since

//…he held onto Sam as the blood stopped pouring out, pressed his lips to Sam's forehead, then his ear. Whispered to him that it was all gonna be ok, all of it was gonna be fine because Dean was gonna take care of everything. Told Sammy to go ahead, sleep it off. Promised him that Dean would hold onto him until he was asleep and then take care of everything. Because that's what Dean does, he takes care of Sammy, he takes care of everything, he's the best brother in the world…//

Sammy left him. Died in his arms, eyes wide open and staring into Dean's, smile on his lips that Dean will never forget. Tasted it in that final kiss goodbye, smelled it when he buried his face in Sam's hair one last time and let the tears fall.

Dean looks down now, sees what he's done to himself. It's almost funny, he decides as he watches himself bleed out. Sammy sacrificed himself, took the blunt of that blade's arc meant to cut Dean in half, and it's the memory of it all that's put an end to the pretense that Dean was going to get himself fixed up somewhere down the line. Outside the window, there on the right side of the car he's run unto a ditch, Dean knows there's a marker. He put it there himself.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean whispers, struggling to slide from behind the wheel. Every movement makes the wound gush hot and slick, but it's stopped hurting. No more grinding glass inside of him when he tries to do anything at all but breathe. "Guess what?"

Lurching from the car, Dean staggers to the left and then throws himself back again, hip striking the front panel and giving him a moment of almost-grace. He leans, panting, then moves forward. Slides himself along the lines of the car, drags himself with every last bit of determination he's ever had.

Dean Winchester is a stubborn son of a bitch, ask anyone. Turns out there's a reason for it, and the reason is this moment, right here and now. Nothing in this world is going to stop him from getting to where he needs to be. Nothing in any world is going to make him take one less step than he needs to take, and if he's gritting those words out into the still night air, then he doesn't give a damn how it sounds if there's anyone to hear him.

It feels like hours before he gets round to the passenger side of the car and sees what he's been dragging himself towards. That marker lies where he left it, the stone dark except for the lines he scratched into it himself.

//… how long has it been? Don't know. Don't need to know. Driving in circles, just waiting for this, waiting for the right time, waiting to be able to sit right down here and let it all go…//

His back against the panel, his legs giving out as soon as he stops trying so damn hard to keep them moving, Dean drops to the ground. The wheel well makes him feel weightless for a split second and then the tire is there, mostly bald but good enough for what he needs right now. His jeans are wet, black in the moonlight, as he leans to the side and lets one shaking hand touch the stone, feeling the roughly carved letters there.

"Hey Sammy," he says again, licks his lip. There's copper there but Dean tastes that last kiss instead of his own blood. "Made it. Told you I would. Told you I'd be back for you." His breath won't seem to come in deep enough no matter how hard he tries, so Dean stops wasting the little he has left on words.

//… Wasn't gonna let you get that far ahead of me. You think I'm giving you the chance to tell me what comes next?//

The breeze is warm on his neck as Dean slides down to lie against the grass. Eyes closed, numbness spreading up now to his arms and chest, he smiles as he imagines that this time he's going to a better place. No matter where he ends up, this time it's going to be all right as far as Dean's concerned.

Sammy's waiting for him and that's all Dean needs.

\-- end


End file.
